Emerald
by Lily McGlaughlin
Summary: I always thought the Daily Prophet to be a piece of rag. Just scrap the aurors tossed us to show us what we missed in our confinement. I never thought it would have led me to the one person who completes me. My Emerald. Slash. Potter/Dolohov.


Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the related characters, plots, places, or creatures.

Warnings: Slash Potter/Dolohov

Authors Note: I saw on an authors profile that she liked this pairing and I had a desire to read one. I was aghast to find that FanFiction didn't have any. As a result I decided to write one. My beta has been very busy lately with starting college so everyone please be patient with me. I admit that I've been busy myself and have had very little time to write. Hopefully she and I will be able to get into the swing of things soon. In the mean time please be patient with me.

Occasionally, the Aurors who were stationed at Azkaban would leave a prisoner a paper so as to taunt them with news of the world that they may never rejoin. That's how I first saw him. On the front page of the Daily Prophet, telling the world that their savior had come to Hogwarts and had been sorted into Gryffindor. Just like his parents, and just like the hero he was. There was a picture of a small boy with unruly black hair and stunning eyes. He seemed lost and alone amongst the scores of other young witches and wizards and I thought that this couldn't be the boy who defeated my lord. There was no way that this small, scared child defeated one of the strongest wizards alive. It just wasn't possible.

Nine months later I received another paper. There was nothing much of use in it except for a small report, hidden on the last page. Between an ad for Witch Weekly and an obituary was squeezed a small report about the death of a Hogwarts professor. He had been attempting to steel the Philosopher's Stone and had been killed in the process. A first year student had prevented him from stealing the stone, which was later destroyed.

This information made me pause and think. There was only one first year that was supposed to be exceptionally powerful. The same first year that had seemed so small on the front page of the Prophet. The boy with the emerald eyes who had defeated my lord. Now he had defeated another Dark wizard. Maybe the boy did have power.

It was a year before I received another paper. With eager eyes, I devoured it, looking for any signs of the Emerald, as I had begun to call him. If he was really powerful, that power would need an outlet of some kind, at least once a year until he really learned to control it. I didn't have to look far. The catastrophe that was Hogwarts was splashed all over the paper. The Chamber of Secrets had been opened again and several students had been petrified. One girl had been taken into the Chamber itself! Two students and the schools newest excuse for a Defense teacher had found the entrance and gone in after her. The student's names were not listed because they were underage, but I had no doubt that the Emerald was one of them. Unlike the bumbling fools who ran Hogwarts, I knew exactly what was in that Chamber. My lord told us of the basilisk that lived under the school and that he had control over. If the Chamber had been opened it meant that some form of my lord had survived to open it. It meant that the Emerald had not only defeated my lord once again, but had also slain a basilisk. The power that had evolved was tremendous.

Power is always what had attracted me. It's what drew me to the Dark Lord. His power. My lord was the most powerful wizard alive, yet a baby had bested him. At first I'd thought it a matter of chance, or some interference of Dumbledore's, but if the Emerald was more powerful than my lord, well, it merited looking into.

It didn't hurt that the Emerald was a certainly a beautiful thing to behold, as well as powerful.

I spent a few months contemplating what magnitude of power the Emerald might have until that fool Black managed to escape. I've no idea how he managed it, but I certainly resent him for it. The number of Dementors seemed to double and none of the prisoners had any peace. Aurors came to question all of us on Black's escape. Did we help him? Did we know where he was going? Did we know how he did it? I'm not sure what answers the others gave them, but I'm sure they were similar to my own. No, no, and no. The fools actually thought Black worked for my lord. Idiots. Black had been as devoted to Dumbledore as Potter and Evans had been. There was no way he would have betrayed them.

Normally, these months with the increased number of Dementors would have been torture, but these days I had something new to focus on. The Emerald. The Emerald wasn't a good thought, because he'd destroyed my lord, and was kind of the reason I was locked up in here, so the Dementors couldn't suck it out of me. However my contemplation of his power was not a torturous thought, therefore I managed to retain my sanity. Unlike some prisoners, whose shrieks grew louder daily.

It was the end of summer again before the Dementors presence lessened and I received another paper. To my disappointment there was no new information on Emerald. Just talk of the Tri-Wizard tournament that would take place at Hogwarts this year. If Emerald had found a release for his powers this past year Dumbledore must have found a way to keep it from the papers.

The next few months were fairly dull until one day I realized that I could see the Dark Mark on my arm again. After Emerald defeated my lord it had disappeared. Now it was returning. Every week it seemed to get darker. I couldn't wait to get another paper to see what was going on.

When that paper arrived though, I nearly ripped it to shreds. An unexplainable rage filled me when I read the story that the Skeeter woman had written. It talked about some mudblood witch who was messing around, not only with Emerald, but also with some other Quidditch-playing buffoon. The thought of Emerald sullying himself with some disgusting witch made my fingers itch for a wand. If I ever met that girl, I swore I'd do my best to kill her. Emerald had power; more power than even the Dark Lord. He shouldn't be wasting it on some mudblood. How pathetic.

I spent a few months raving on this injustice, disgusted about it all. I was so distracted that I almost failed to notice the continued darkening of the mark on my left arm. My cycle of anger was broken when I felt it burn one day. It was a sensation I never thought I'd feel again. My heart soared though. The burning of the mark could only mean one thing. The Dark Lord had returned and I, as one of his most faithful would soon be free and rewarded for my service. All thoughts of the mudblood and my Emerald were chased from my mind for the time.

A few short months later the Dark Lord came for us. The Dementors flocked to his side and allowed him to break open the walls that had held us for so long. The feel of air on my face has never felt so good, but the smell of salt water will forever make me nauseous. After years of smelling nothing but the salt water from the ocean surrounding Azkaban, I don't think I'll ever be able to visit a beach.

Freedom is a wonderful thing, even if you're in hiding. Being able to choose when and what to eat, when and where to sleep, and even what to wear. All these freedoms are often overlooked and undervalued, but after years in hell, even being able to make the decision of eating an apple over an orange was a wonderful experience. One of my main pleasures was the ability to read the paper everyday. And read it I did. The other escapees thought I was crazy. Before the Dark Lord's disappearance we had all thought the main wizarding papers to be crap. Good for nothing more than lining the beds of our house elves. They spent their time filing up on the carnal pleasures that were denied to us. Sex, blood, torture, and food filled their every waking moment. I participated some, but it didn't feel the way it did before the Dark Lord's disappearance. The sex wasn't as satisfying. No matter how hard I pumped into the struggling body beneath me, no matter how they screamed and fought, the pleasure just wasn't there. The blood that used to fascinate me didn't seem as red. It seemed thicker and slower as it left the victims, leaving me feeling unsatisfied and angry. Even the screams brought about by some of my more inventive torture curses failed to satisfy me. One of the only things that did was reading about my Emerald.

They thought him crazy for proclaiming my lord's return. The fools. One minute they praised him and the next declared him unstable. They had no idea of the power he held. No idea that he could destroy them utterly and completely. Their treatment of him sickened me and I wanted to curse them all for their words.

I struggled with this for nearly a year. My feelings confused me. And the only solution I could find was to scour the papers for word of him. It wasn't until the Dark Lord spoke of his plan to lure my Emerald into the Department of Mysteries to remove the prophecy that I began to feel the first stirrings of unease.I knew that my Emerald was more powerful than the Dark Lord, but until now I'd never thought about leaving the Dark Lord. Never thought that the Dark Lord's ideals might be flawed. Never thought that the Dark Lord might lose.

There were so many loopholes in the Dark Lord's plan; so many problems. No one knows all of the secrets that the Department of Mysteries holds and we might be going in just as blind as my Emerald would be. The Dark Lord was sending nearly fifteen of us so as to insure that there were no problems. Did he really have so little confidence in those that he claimed were his best men? And anyway how many Death Eaters does it take to capture a small group of children? They are children who are not completely trained and yet the Dark Lord is sending over a dozen of his 'best men' to take them out? Either the Dark Lord thought us weak or he knew how powerful my Emerald was.

The day came to test it though. We cornered my Emerald and some of his little friends in the Hall of Prophecy. It was the first time I'd been able to look at my Emerald face to face and when I first saw him I couldn't stop my breath from catching in my throat. Power seemed to flow around him in waves. His emerald eyes sparkled with anger as he realized the trap that he'd led his friends into. His hair was ruffled and messy, and pictures did no justice to his beauty. He was truly a sight to behold. The moment was stolen however when I saw the bushy hair next to him. My eyes narrowed as I stared at the mudblood that my Emerald spent so much time with. So distracted was I that I failed to see the direction that the conversation was taking and I was surprised when the children began to fight back.

The fools split up and I took my chance to follow the mudblood. As soon as I got the chance I sent a spell at her that I'd been working on before my lord's disappearance. I'd meant it to enter a person's intestines and slowly create tiny cuts all on the inside, no deeper than a paper cut, which would let the person suffer for a while. Unfortunately, I never finished developing it so I wasn't exactly sure what the effects would be, but I knew they couldn't be good and that they would be painful and that was all that mattered. I wanted to show that piece of dirt that she had no place even sharing the same air as my Emerald.

I found out my answer to my question that night. Although Order members showed up to save the children and my Emerald, they didn't really. All night I'd watched as whips of my Emerald's power darted out to protect his friends. In fact, the only ones who'd been seriously injured were his best friends. Both the mudblood and blood traitor suffered wounds that would put them in the hospital for a few days. It confused me. I watched his power come out and block the worst of my spell and the brain tentacles.

It was at the end of the night when I made a decision though. After my Emerald ran after Lestrange, I followed. I watched as he cursed her and dealt with the Dark Lord. I watched the Dark Lord battle Dumbledore and lose. I watched my Emerald's power hurt the Dark Lord and I watched him run away. I watched the ministry fools appear and watched their shock at learning that yes, the Dark Lord had returned. And as I watched my Emerald turned and looked straight at me.

I was hidden in a shadowy corner far away from him, but he knew I was there. When my eyes met his, a shock wave swept through me. I felt a wisp of his power fly out toward me and form some numbers in front of my eyes. Their image was not bright or clear, but I felt it burn its way through my retinas and into my brain. And then it was gone. He turned away and started to follow Dumbledore out of the crowded Atrium. It took me a minute to realize how crowded the room was becoming with Aurors because, even though our eyes had only met for a second, people were flooing in constantly. It was time to leave.

I apparated to the cottage that my mother had lived in when I was in school. It was a small place in a clearing in the woods that she had relaxed in. I hadn't been here in since I'd graduated and the place had fallen into disrepair. It didn't bother me though, and I'd not come here to fix it up. I needed a place to think, away from the Dark Lord and his followers. My Emerald had more power than Voldemort. I knew that now for certain. And not only that, but he knew how to use it. He was talented with subtle manipulations. The order would get the credit for today's success, but it was really My Emerald who had held off all of Voldemort's Death Eaters. It was almost Slytherin-like. I pondered the numbers for a minute. My Emerald had sent me a message. He'd sent me a set of apparation coordinates, along with a date and time. He wanted me to meet him in a week's time. For a minute I considered not going, but I knew I would go. I had to meet My Emerald.

A week later I found myself standing in the middle of a muggle suburb in what they call a playground. Voldemort had educated all his Death Eaters on muggle life in order to show us just how inferior they are. I'd been waiting not five minutes when I felt a wand press against my neck.

"Dolohov," his voice was like velvet in my ear. I felt a hand turn me around and I spun to stare at open space. The wand was removed from my neck and a hand appeared in mid air. It reached up and grabbed something I couldn't see and pulled. Suddenly My Emerald stood before me, the cloak draped over his arm making it invisible. "What do you want?" he asked me.

His eyes were sharp and penetrating. I felt them analyzing me- and everything I'd ever done. I think he knew what I wanted, but I said it anyway to appease him.

"You."

His eyes narrowed behind those pains of glass, "And how do I know that? You follow Voldemort. You've killed, you've tortured, you've raped, and you've plundered. How do I know you?"

I paused for a minute before stepping forward until there was less than a foot of space between us."You know," I told him and he nodded. Because he did. Somehow he knew that his power had drawn me to him. He knew that I knew of his secrets and his plans. When he burned this address into my brain, he saw a bit of me and I saw a bit of him. We knew each other. He knew I couldn't betray him as I was betraying Voldemort. He knew that my help was what he needed to destroy Voldemort forever. He knew that I needed him.

He just knew.

He took a step forward and that was all I needed. I reached out and pulled him close to me. Leaning down I crushed our lips together and devoured him. Our tongues battled and I felt alive for the first time in years. I felt his power rush up into me and coarse through my body setting me on fire. I knew then that Voldemort had nothing on My Emerald. It wasn't even just his power that drew my to My Emerald now. It was the way he made me feel more than I had in years. I felt alive in a way that I hadn't felt since I was in Hogwarts. I knew that there would be no returning to Voldemort now or ever. I belonged to myself now. Myself and My Emerald, now and forever.


End file.
